


They Met on a Plane

by mollswinchester



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Artist Castiel (Supernatural), Dean has a Fear of Flying, Flirting, Fluff, Mechanic Dean, Multi, Nervous Dean, Past Character Death, Past Lydia (Supernatural: Slice Girls)/Dean Winchester, Single Parent Dean, Sort Of, Teacher Castiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 13:06:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11990418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollswinchester/pseuds/mollswinchester
Summary: All Castiel Milton wants after a grueling week visiting family for the holidays is to be home. Unfortunately, a 5 hour plane ride lies in his way. Not to mention the attractive man freaking out and his daughter seated next to him.





	They Met on a Plane

Cas doesn’t hate flying. In fact, he loves it. He doesn’t do it often--doesn’t have any need--but when he does, he’s absolutely thrilled. So now, he should be buzzing with excitement, right? Except, not, because he’s flying back to Lawrence from his family Christmas in California. Not an ideal plane ride after a less than ideal Christmas. 

Christmas Day breakfast--which is always a big deal in the Milton home--ended early with Gabe stabbing Mom’s wooden table with a fork, Michael throwing a bread roll at Gabe’s head, Anna throwing herself at Michael, and Cas rushing to pull her off. All the while, Luke sat back and watched with a smirk as his siblings tore each other apart. It was surprisingly, one of the less chaotic Christmas dinners he’s had in the past few years, probably because Dad was away on one of his international mission trips and wasn’t there to add fuel to the fire. 

Still, all Cas wants is to be in his own home with his own bed and his own blankets wrapped around him. But he instead has a five hour flight ahead of him.

So imagine Cas’s irritability when he finds he’s seated next to a man and his young child. All he wants is to relax, as it’s 6 o’clock in the evening after a grueling day, and a crying kid on the flight will prevent him from that. 

However, when Cas sits down and waits for the flight to take off, he soon realizes that the child isn’t going to be the one cause the problem. No, instead, it’s going to be the grown man sitting by the window. The child, Cas now realizes, is a roughly two-year-old girl, and she’s trying to calm down her dad who happens to be flipping out. 

“Shhhh,” she keeps saying, rubbing her dad’s arm which she is cradling in her lap. “It’s okay, daddy.”

Cas watches in amusement as the little girl continues soothing her nervous father. Her nervous, yet very handsome father. Cas shakes his head--best not think those kinds of thoughts of a man he may never see again, who also has a child and most likely a wife. 

When the flight begins to take off, the little girl giggles as though she’s on a roller coaster and her father grips the armrests so tight, his knuckles are visibly white. The man looks up and around like he’s trying to see if anyone else is freaking out, but no one is. When he looks in his direction, Cas finally gets a full view of the man’s face. Which happens to be even more attractive than he initially thought. He’s probably around Cas’s age, but his face still looks young for being near thirty-years-old. His hair is a sandy color and his eyes are bright green. 

“Dude, this can’t be normal,” the man says to Cas, eyes wide with concern. 

“What do you mean?”

“The flying! Humans really shouldn’t be able to fly--dammit.” The plane rocks forward and the man squints his eyes together tightly.

“It’s perfectly safe,” Cas says, hoping he can add a voice of reason. 

“Yeah, I’ll believe you if we don’t fall to our deaths.” he says.

“Silly, daddy,” the little girl next to him laughs. She has red hair, but other than that, she looks almost identical to her father. 

“Do you see this?” the man looks at Cas, exasperated. “She thinks it’s funny.”

“It is kind of funny,” Cas admits. 

“Great. Great, now both of the people I’m stuck with for five hours are going to be making fun of me.” He sighs, and then the pilot’s voice comes on over the intercom, announcing that they can now unbuckle their seatbelts and move around. The man leans down to pull up a diaper bag, out of which he pulls a coloring book and a mess of crayons. He pulls the table down in front of his daughter and lets her color. Cas tries not to let the artist in him criticize her for her extremely messy work.

“I’m Dean,” the man says. “And this is Emma.”

“Castiel. Or Cas.” Cas would reach out to shake Dean’s hand, but he really can’t, since the man has gone back to gripping the armrests. 

“Huh, like the angel?”

“How would you know that?” Cas asks, surprised. Most people aren’t quite as knowledgeable on the subject of angels as his parents were when they named him. 

“My mom used to tell me stories of angels when I was little.” Cas nods. 

Suddenly intrigued by Dean, Cas has the urge to continue conversation with him. “So where are you headed?”

“Lawrence. We were visiting my brother in Palo Alto for Christmas.”

“You live in Lawrence? I do too.”

“Small world. What about you, where are you coming from?”

“San Jose. I was also spending Christmas with my family.”

“Did you have a nice time?” Dean asks. Cas laughs. 

“If by ‘nice’ you mean having to make sure none of my siblings murdered each other at the dinner table, then yes. I suppose it was ‘nice’”

Dean chuckles. “Crazy families are something I know a lot about, man. That’s why this year, it was just the two of us and my brother’s family.”

The flight attendant comes by then, asking if they want anything. While Cas settles with some water, Dean asks for some whiskey for himself. He winks at her and she blushes before handing over the scotch and pushing her cart forward. Yeah, definitely straight. And hopefully he’s not married, though Cas isn’t going to judge--flirting with a flight attendant isn’t the worst crime. 

After that, Dean closes his eyes and leans back in his seat while Cas tries to focus on the book he brought with him. It’s hard, however, to focus when the little girl, Emma, is completely murdering her crayons while coloring in a picture of a dog in her book. 

“You know, if you don’t push so hard, the crayons last for a longer time.” Cas tells the girl, picking up one of her crayons and demonstrating. Emma smiles and picks up a red crayon, rubbing it over a dog’s ear. Cas refrains from reprimanding her color choice and technique. 

“Good job,” he tells her, when she takes his advice on not pushing so hard. She hands him another crayon without saying anything, and Cas takes it as an invitation to color along with her. The only familiarity he has with children as small as her is his nieces and nephews, most of which he’s not around very often. 

“Do you need any refills?” Cas looks up to see a different flight attendant than before paused next to his seat. 

“Sure, some more water, thanks.” Dean’s asleep, so he doesn’t say anything. 

“The three of you make a beautiful family,” the woman says while scooping ice into Cas’s plastic cup. 

“”Oh, us?” Cas motions between himself and the sleeping man. “No, we’re not--”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Dean says, suddenly awake. The flight attendant nods and smiles, handing Cas his drink and then pushing her cart further down the aisle. 

“Why did you tell her we’re a couple?”

“I don’t know, it’s easier to explain than telling her how a total stranger is helping my daughter learn how to use crayons,” Dean smirks and Cas blushes. “Unless you don’t want her to think you’re gay or something, which is understandable--”

“No, it’s uh-- well, I am gay, I was just curious why you didn’t deny it.” Cas surprises himself. He just randomly came out to a stranger on an airplane. Huh. 

“Look, daddy.” Emma says, lifting her book up and showing her dad the messy artwork on the coloring page with the dogs. 

“Wow, that’s very nice.” Dean says, taking the book in his own hands. “You ready to start a new page?” He turns to a new page in the book, this one has flowers, and puts it back in front of his daughter on his tray. 

The plane jerks to the side a little bit, and Cas looks to Dean immediately to see him clenching his eyes closed again and gripping the armrests once more. “Shit,” he all but shouts. 

“Bad word, daddy,” Emma reminds him.

“Right, sorry kiddo.” 

Cas laughs at their dynamic but then becomes genuinely concerned that Dean is going to either have a heart attack or start screaming. “You know, the likelihood of this plane crashing is slim to none,” he tells him, hoping to calm him down. 

“You’re a lot friendlier than the woman we sat next to on the last flight. She complained about me to one of the flight attendants and got her seat moved.” Cas snorts and Dean glares at him, but there’s no malice behind it. 

“I guess you got lucky this time,” Cas says and Dean huffs a laugh.

“So, you an artist?” Dean asks, shifting in his seat so he can face Cas more directly. 

“Sort of,” he responds. “I mean, yes, in a sense. I’m an art teacher.”

“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Dean laughs. “Which school do you teach at?”

“Lawrence elementary.”

Dean nods. “That’s where Emma’ll go in a few years.”

“What do you do, Dean?”

“I’m a mechanic.”

“So, like, cars and stuff?”

Dean throws his head back and laughs. “Yeah, Cas. Like cars and stuff.”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t know very much about cars.”

“Yeah, well, not a lot of people do. That’s not to say you’re excused, Cas. I’m betting you have a foreign, environmentally friendly car, don’t you?”

“To be honest, I wouldn’t even know.” Cas answers sheepishly and Dean laughs at him again.

They carry on with conversation for a while longer before Dean drifts off again and Cas turns back to his book. Emma has ceased coloring and is laying her head on her dad’s shoulder, thumb in her mouth and eyes closed. Cas is genuinely impressed with her behavior. 

When the plane finally starts to descend from the air, Dean’s reaction is a mixture of panic and relief. He curses loudly when the plane touches down but apologizes when Emma scolds him. As Cas grabs his duffel bag from the overhead compartment, he tries not to be upset that this may very well have been the only time he ever got to spend with the charming man. He doesn’t dwell, though, because he has to continue moving down the aisle or the other passengers are going to be upset. 

When Cas finally steps into the airport, he moves out of the way from where everyone is moving to check his phone. He has multiple texts from Gabriel where he’s ranting about the family and cursing Castiel for leaving a day earlier than him. He also has a text from his mother, who tells him that he forgot a few items of clothing and that she’ll ship them to him through mail. 

Cas looks up to see Dean walking toward him, a sleeping Emma in his arms. He’s carrying way too much, a duffel bag, a diaper bag, a backpack, and a little girl, but the sight is amusing and Cas laughs. He’ll have even more to carry once he picks up his checked luggage.

“So, Cas,” Dean says when he approaches. “I don’t know if you’re interested, or single, but I was wondering if you’d like to maybe grab coffee sometime?” He looks nervous--not we’re on a plane and ohmygod we’re going to die nervous--but nervous nonetheless. 

“Uh--you mean, you’re not straight? Or married?”

Cas keeps saying things that make Dean chuckle, even though it isn’t his intention. “No, Emma’s mom, my wife, died during childbirth. And I’m not straight, I’m bisexual.”

“Oh, I’m--uh, sorry to hear about that.” Cas feels awkward and regrets bringing it up. 

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean offers a genuine smile. “So, about that coffee date?”

“Of course, yes, I’d love to get coffee with you some time.”

Dean smiles at that and the two then exchange phone numbers. As Cas is driving his car home that night, he thinks he really does love flying.


End file.
